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DUNEDIN, FLA.—Jose Bautista is ticking off what is not required of the Blue Jays to have a good year.

Listen up.

“We don’t need anybody to have an extraordinary season. Nobody needs to hit 54 home runs. Nobody needs to have a year like Baltimore’s first baseman. We don’t need people to go out on the pitching mound and feel like they have to go eight shutout innings every day.”

For the record: Bautista led the majors and set a new club record with 54 home runs in 2010. That Baltimore first baseman, Chris Davis, is coming off a historic season where he led the majors in homers (53), extra base hits (96) and RBIs (138), to cite but a few of his fat stats. And only on three occasions last year did any Toronto starter go eight shutout innings — R.A. Dickey did it twice, Mark Buehrle once.

What Bautista means is that no deus ex machina is necessary to resolve all the simultaneous issues that bedevilled the Jays in 2013, rendering them such a shocking bust. This roster, which looked so luscious 12 months ago, is not significantly different but for the elimination of Josh Johnson and a continuing muddle in the starting rotation.

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This is the team that will likely take the field when the campaign opens for real March 31, for better or worse. You might say worse; Bautista says better, if only because there surely can’t be a déjà-vu convergence of stars misaligning.

“We’ve got players who have led the league in batting, that have gone to the all-star game, that have played on championship teams before. We have guys that can run, we have guys that can hit, we have guys that can bunt, we have guys that can play great defence. We have the weapons, we have the tools. We have everything that it takes. We just need to go out there and perform and be healthy. If we do that, the possibilities are endless.”

Yes, well, about that healthy thing. The on-advisement proviso applies just as much to slugger Bautista, who finished the last two seasons on the disabled list. An injured left wrist that necessitated surgery stopped him dead in his tracks in 2012 and a badly bruised left hip forced him out of the lineup for the final month of 2013, after batting .259 with 28 round-trippers. Previous to that, Bautista led the majors in homers for two straight seasons. That’s the Bautista the Jays need again, for all that Edwin Encarnacion picked up the swatting slack.

Crucially, Bautista — and Jose Reyes and Brett Lawrie — need to stay on the field. Obviously there’s no way of ensuring that. But Bautista insists he hasn’t suddenly gone brittle. The wrist was a freakish thing, the sore hip a result of repetitive impact plays. “I feel great and I have no reason to think that this isn’t going to be a great, healthy season for me.”

He whacked a homer with his first swing of the bat in Grapefruit League play and has sent balls over the fence twice since. Thursday, Bautista had a walk and sac fly — and nifty shoestring catch in the field — before coming out of the eventual 7-5 loss to the Astros. More importantly, the swing has looked smooth and easy, the contact timing adroit, as evidenced by a .375 average.

The only real objective in his spring training is to get back in the groove.

“No matter how much you train in the off-season, nothing can replicate a baseball game. Seeing the ball, getting your timing down, making sure that when the season starts you only worry about executing. Any time you lay off an activity for four of five months and then get back to it, it’s not the same. Even if you stop playing chess for six months, or you stop writing for six months, it takes some time to get back into your normal ability to do that activity.”

To that end, the ferociously training 33-year-old — in the meat of his career — began preparations early in Tampa, where he lives in the off-season, with teammate Melky Cabrera. “A lot of running, long runs and sprints, a lot of strength and conditioning work, a lot of endurance building. Segue to the games means segue to refining the mental aspects of baseball.

“Back into execution mode and knowing your train of thought and pitch sequences and what you think a pitcher might do in the situation that’s in front of you. Mentally and physically it’s getting back into baseball shape, that’s what spring training is all about.”

Bautista well understands the disappointment that Toronto fans absorbed last year — theirs isn’t as deep as his. That roster had his input all over it, as befits a team leader. He does not expect the fan base to have cooled out towards the team following a season where the turnstiles spun again, with attendance rising by 20 per cent.

“I think the fans love the Blue Jays, no matter who we run out there. Obviously, they like us to win. We would love to provide that for them. The fact they rallied so much around us last year ... well, this is the same team.”

Of course, that could also be this team’s undoing.

“Getting off to a good start wouldn’t hurt, getting their trust back.”

The trust of the fans and the trust of the Jays, it should be added, each to each.

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